The Gauche Gold of Hangman's Reef
by Accolade D. D
Summary: By now you know the story - shipwreck, Jack saves strange woman, etc. etc., Jack falls in love with said woman. But where's the adventure in that? Right here, mate.


Pirates of the Caribbean: the Gold of Hangman's Reef  
  
A/N: Would anyone want, by any chance, to be a beta for me? I think I could use one...especially one who knows Jack...er, excuse me, Captain Jack Sparrow very well.  
  
Prologue. Or, the evils of rum.  
  
*  
  
Swells tugged at her salt encrusted ankles as her feet dragged through the freezing water. The sun glared down from above, clawing it's hot red way through her closed eyelids. Her skin felt like a furnace, her throat was burning and splinters dug into her back and what was left of her poor, abused linen shift that she had ripped up to tie together the bits of planking that were now, after a fashion, her raft.  
  
Against all common sense, she was singing. "Seven-three tankard," hiccup, "of rum in a barrrrrel, seven...six tankards of rum!" Hiccup. "Pour on' out," she paused to dunk her empty flask into the broken barrel of rum floating next to her. "An' drink it all up," she pulled it out less than half full and waved it weakly in the air before letting it fall on her lips and spill into her mouth. She choked, and began gulping the stinging brew hurriedly. When she had drank most of it, and what she hadn't was dripping down her neck, "Seven-five tankards of," hiccup, "rummmmm in a barrel!"  
  
"Seven," hiccup, "-five tankards of rum in a barrrel, seven-five," hiccup, "tankard of rum! Pour one out...An' drink it'll up," She sputtered as salty water invaded her dry mouth instead of rum. Her eyes squinted in unseeing confusion as she dropped the flask and flailed around for the barrel.   
  
The rum was drifting away! "No! No' the RUM!" For that matter, her raft was breaking apart, and she was sinking.   
  
A crested wave washed over her like an icey wake up call, and her eyes flew open only to flinch closed again as she gaspingly tried to sit up and fell off what was left of her makeshift vessel. Her flask hit her on the head.  
  
Loud, garbled noise assaulted her ears as she watched the blue play of light on water from the underside on her eyelids and struggled for the surface, trying to untangle her legs and swim at the same time.  
  
Then the light grew dark and disappeared. When she broke the surface she drunkenly wondered if it had anything to do with the large black ship just a few feet away. "Wot's goin' on?!"  
  
"You down there! Have you anything worth rescueing you for?" a strangely drunk voice called out from above. She looked up, and could just see flashes of gold and silver bobbing about on a shady blur above some railing.  
  
"Hallo?" A rope was suddenly trailing down from the ship. She grabbed for it and missed, going under and, unfortunately for her rum saturated stomach, swallowed more salt with some water. After a moment's frantic paddling she caught the thing and pulled herself out, coughing up sea.  
  
"Are *you* drunk?" the voice inquired.  
  
Now that, she knew the answer to. "Migh' be! Might ver' well be!"  
  
*  
  
"Ah," he stated, shifting backwards and tilting his head. "Let's try this again!" he slurred resting his elbow on the rail. "Have you got any treasure? Gold, silver, jewels, a pretty wig?"  
  
The woman seemed to be puzzled. Her forehead wrinkled and dried salt crumbled back into the ocean, anyway. "Pre'y wig?"  
  
He narrowed his kohl-rimmed eyes as he leaned over the rail and tucked his chin in to see better. "Yes. I can't tell from here if that's just sea salt or a wig."  
  
"No' really, I don' think.... But it migh' be, ya migh'...be int'res' in m' earrings?"  
  
"We're here to salvage, Jack, not to ransom the survivor" The warning note in the cultured, straight arrow voice made him swivel to exasperatedly face Will, little suprised.  
  
"That's CAPTAIN Jack Sparrow, boy." His four metal teeth glinted as he corrected his stalwart and upstanding companion, hanging his arm on the air to point out his point. "And if I had known there was a survivor, my reason for changin' course might not have been for salvage!" Captain Jack made an expansive gesture, swaying a little unsteadily.  
  
"Pirate!" Will began to haul on the rope. "Just hold on, Miss!"  
  
"Missus! 'M a married woman!"   
  
"You wouldn't happen to have the wedding ring to prove it, would you?" Sparrow let Will's accusing glare pass right behind him as he leaned back over the side of the ship.  
  
*  
  
She opened her mouth to answer, but her befuddled eyes strayed away from those annoying flares of light to the figure head of the black ship. The youthful face, roughened and cracked by age, was looking out in the distance for something, and she wanted to know what it was.   
  
  
  
As she was hoisted towards the forecastle she tried in vain to turn and see until long, weathered hands helped her aboard. She quirked an eyebrow at all the rings he wore. "Why do ya wan' my weddin' ring when ya've got...lots o' your own?"  
  
  
  
That's when she looked at his face. At the reddened skin taut over high cheekbones, and the red sash tying his black hair and it's strange dreadlocks back, and the clatter of beads and trinkets and the length of bone tied in, and his darkened eyes and tempting smirk. And shrieked. "'M dead! 'M dead, arn' I, an' the devil hisself come t' drag me 'way!"   
  
*  
  
She panicked and her foot slid off the deck, pulling all and sundry and Jack over the edge. 


End file.
